April 19, 2009

I am a progressive populist. As a progressive, I value, work toward, and believe in an ever-expanding recognition of equality for all peoples. I have no tolerance for intolerance. Owning personal firearms levels the playing field somewhat for those most vulnerable to abuse: women, the elderly, the poor, and the handicapped. I’m a populist because I feel no allegiance to or from elites. Instead, I fear the vast expansion of governmental power over the past decade, at the expense of the Rule of Law, and at the expense of basic human rights — particularly the 800-year-old Magna Carta provision for habeas corpus. 2A advocacy is an egalitarian issue.

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.” Adolf Hitler

“One man with a gun can control 100 without one…. Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms.” Vladimir I. Lenin

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants…” Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment by criminologist Cesare Beccaria

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed — unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” James Madison, The Federalist, No. 46 at 243-244

“An armed society is a polite society.” Robert Heinlein

Gun rights are neither liberal nor conservative, feminist nor patriarchal, Democrat nor Republican, Left nor Right. Gun rights are populist at their core, in defense against government tyranny at their widest application, and in self-defense at their most personal application.

The debate over gun rights is vast and well-documented. The basic arguments for an armed citizenry are:

To maintain political order and prevent tyranny;

To protect community from outside invasion;

Personal defense and crime prevention; and

Sport and hunting.

The basic arguments against an armed populace ignore history or adopt a Pollyanna view toward government. Plenty of folks, on the Right and on the Left, and those in-between, recognize the value of preventive armament. We recognize that bipartisan-passed legislation over the past nine years strips US citizens of their sovereignty and destroys the Bill of Rights. (All this legislation, because it’s unconstitutional, is void, according to the US Supreme Court*.)

Some history – Jews and Other Genocides

In 1981, Morton Grove, Illinois became the first U.S. city to ban the possession of firearms. Next came Evanston, Illinois, which passed a similar ordinance without controversy. But when the measure was proposed in nearby Skokie, it was soundly defeated. Skokie, populated by Holocaust survivors, knew the merits of personal armament and the dangers of its lack. (Alderman and Kennedy)

Some researchers took this argument on a survey of seven nations that committed genocide in the 20th century, determining that in each instance, citizens were legislatively disarmed prior to their mass extermination by their government. In Lethal Laws: Gun Control Is the Key to Genocide, the authors demonstrated that these nations that perpetrated genocide had chosen a victim population which was disarmed. If the intended victims were not already gun-free, then the murderous governments first got rid of the guns before they began the killing.

“[D]isarmament upsets the proper relationship between the master (the people) and the servant (the government) by making the people accustomed to dependence on the government. Machiavelli observed that:

‘[A]mong other ills which ensue from being disarmed is contempt . . . . There can be no proper relation between one who is armed and one who is not; nor is it reasonable to expect that one who is armed will voluntarily obey one who is not, or that the latter will feel secure among servants who are armed.’

“To the generation that drafted the Second Amendment, possessing arms to deter a government (or a mob which might be inspired by the government) that might contemplate mass murder was an uncontroversial moral imperative. The fact that the same message in the 20th-century book Lethal Lawsmay be considered so radical as to be not even worth discussing is perhaps one reason why genocide has become the great pandemic of the twentieth century.”

Feminists for Firearms

Feminists debate gun rights as hotly as any other group. Inge Anna Larish published “Why Annie Can’t Get Her Gun: A Feminist Perspective on the Second Amendment” in the University of Illinois Law Review (467, 1996). She points out that the most vulnerable members of society are most harmed by disarmament:

“Control rhetoric generally ignores the evidence that crime against the physically weaker members of society (women, children, the elderly, or the disabled) increases where guns are less available….

“The exclusion of women’s concerns in the gun control debate ignores that women are most in need of guns for self-defense. All else being held equal, women are physically weaker than men and will continue to be victimized by men whether or not men have guns.

Moreover, unlike men, women use guns primarily for defensive purposes – most often as a last resort…. guns not only equalize the differences between men, but also eliminate the disparity in physical power between the sexes….

“Analysts repeatedly find that guns are the surest and safest method of protection for those who are most vulnerable to ‘vicious male predators.'”

Licensing and carry laws discriminate against women and the poor because “need” is most often based on economic or social status, “while denying permits to working-class individuals who must operate in crime-ridden areas as part of their daily job.” Need is most often based on property protection over physical protection. Larish points out:

“Major metropolitan and urban areas which have the greatest proportion of violent crime against women, as well as the greatest likelihood of woman-headed households, also have the most restrictive gun control measures….”

An important note on disinformation: ‘assault’ weapons is a misnomer. Semi-automatic firearms are not automatic assault weapons, as shown in this video report by San Jose police officer, Leroy Pyle:

As the banksters steal more homes and impoverish more citizens, as the multinational food-control corporations increase hunger, as computerized voting renders elections meaningless, as wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer families, civil unrest is likely to grow. Annie, get your gun. Self-defense is inherently a natural human right.

Larish, Inge Anna. Why Annie Can’t Get Her Gun: A Feminist Perspective on the Second Amendment. University of Illinois Law Review, 467 (1996). Rpt. in Gun Control & Gun Rights: A Reader & a Guide. Eds. Andrew J. McCurg, David B. Kopel, Brannon P. Denning. New York University Press, 2002. 258-267.

Simkin, Jay, Aaron Zelman, and Alan M. Rice. Lethal Laws: Gun Control Is the Key to Genocide, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, 1992.

*U.S. Supreme Court:

The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land, and any statue, to be valid, must be in agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:

The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it.

An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.”

Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principals follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it..

A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one.

An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law.

Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.

There’s no difference between political parties in the US — voting in this country (and the two-party system) is a fake dog-and-pony show to convince people that this is a democracy. The powers-that-be give their marching orders to the president and congress, no matter what color their flag.

So many people today point at school and mass shootings as the perfect reason to ban all guns. As though it was the gun that encouraged the shooter to start shooting as many people as they could?

AMERICA WAS 200 YEARS OLD IN THE 1970’S BEFORE THESE SHOOTING STARTED, “WHY IS THE QUESTION?”
I grew up at a time when there was none of this insanity and there were guns everywhere. I went to school starting in the early 50’s and when I was in high school almost everyone I knew had their own gun at home. But there were no shootings at schools or mass shooting anywhere in the USA during that time, except “ONE!”

That was Charles Witman in 1966 University of Texas, he killed 16 and wounded 32, first were his mother and wife who he stabbed before he went to the school. Witman, like almost all school or mass shooters was on psych drugs, his were Dexedrine which is similar to meth. “Dexedrine was one of the very first psychiatric, mass-marketed drugs.”
Side Effects:
irritability, aggression, depression, mood swings, hallucinations, confusion, psychosis, schizophrenia, and delusional thinking

Witman’s Suicide Note:
“The suicide note made it clear that Whitman had no idea why he felt compelled to do something that he acknowledged was irrational.”

AMERICANS WERE DUMBFOUNDED
“When the Witman shooting happened it was inexplicable and evoked a bewildered response. Americans were mystified, and newspaper accounts of the incident were read by hushed groups. The media ran with the story for weeks. The event was beyond rational analysis. The society that we were back in the sixties just could not think and deal with such an unprecedented act of senseless violence.”

SCHOOL SHOOTING’S TAKE OFF
School shootings started gaining momentum in the 70’s, and they have steadily gotten worse. The guns are the same, it is the people who are changing, and it is a chemical change and a big part of it is psych drugs. Guns are no different than tools, and they are nothing until someone picks one up. It is about the someone who picks them up, it is not about the gun.

TAKE AWAY THE GUNS
Lets say you took all the guns out of the hands of mass killers? What will you have, a person who still wants to kill mass numbers of people and they will find a way…… Remember, Columbine was planned as a bombing, the boys designed bombs and planned on killing 450 people, not just shooting 13. They brought along the guns to mop-up any survivors!

The boys designed and tested butane gas, bottle bombs and set one off on the other side of the city to destract the police. At the school they set those bombs to go off when the school cafateria was packed, that would have been 450 students and teachers!

COLUMBINE WITHOUT THE GUNS
Imagine if the boys did not have guns, they took the bombs to school and they did not go off. So they took the bombs back home, fixed them, took them back to the school and killed 450 people, Columbine was actually very lucky!﻿

DYLAN KLEBOLD (medical records are sealed) a report exists of a friend of Klebold who witnessed Klebold taking Paxil and Zoloft and urged him to come off of them.
—PAXIL AND ZOLOFT made the top 10 list of violence-inducing prescription drugs in a report from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, this was based on data from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System

OTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING EXAMPLES ALL KNOWN TO BE ON PSYCH DRUGS: (54 dead,105 wounded)
Dekalb, Illinois – February 14, 2008: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 16 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.
Omaha, Nebraska – December 5, 2007: 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed eight people and wounded five before committing suicide in an Omaha mall. Hawkins’ friend told CNN that the gunman was on antidepressants, and autopsy results confirmed he was under the influence of the “anti-anxiety” drug Valium.
Jokela, Finland – November 7, 2007: 18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School in southern Finland, then committed suicide.
Cleveland, Ohio – October 10, 2007: 14-year-old Asa Coon stormed through his school with a gun in each hand, shooting and wounding four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon had been placed on the antidepressant Trazodone.
Blacksburg, Virginia – April 16, 2007: 23-year-old Seung Hui Cho shot to death 32 students and faculty of Virginia Tech, wounding 17 more, and then killing himself. He had received prior mental health treatment, however his mental health records remained sealed.
Red Lake, Minnesota – March 2005: 16-year-old Jeff Weise, on Prozac, shot and killed his grandparents, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 7 students and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself.
Greenbush, New York – February 2004: 16-year-old Jon Romano strolled into his high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. Romano had been taking “medication for depression”.
El Cajon, California – March 22, 2001: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, on the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor, opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School.
Williamsport, Pennsylvania – March 7, 2001: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was taking the antidepressant Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.
Conyers, Georgia – May 20, 1999: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
Columbine, Colorado – April 20, 1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves. Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox. Klebold’s medical records remain sealed.
Notus, Idaho – April 16, 1999: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, narrowly missing students. He was taking a prescribed SSRI antidepressant and Ritalin.
Springfield, Oregon – May 21, 1998: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been taking the antidepressant Prozac.

How can the medical records be sealed when that person was involved in an irrational act of killing numerous people?